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Thursday, 17 April 2014

The Rearview Mirror: GW34 in Review

FOR THE 96

I don't know about you, but for me, it's been a week of deep poignancy. As I sat reduced to tears watching the horror of Hillsborough unfold in front of me 25 years after that tragic day, I couldn't help but be overcome with emotion. Football is often a world of extremes. It can take us to the pinnacle of euphoria and drop us to the deepest depths of despair. It can bring out the best in us and the worst in us. As always, it's the basic core of our humanity that allows this to happen.

Football is a wonderful sport but it's all about the PEOPLE. It's the PEOPLE who create the underlying spirit upon which the game delivers its euphoria and despair, it's the PEOPLE who turn a local derby into a rivalry so deep that it can look a lot like hatred until you realize that as much as you want to think that the passion separates and drives a wedge between you, it also binds you together in a way that makes you more similar to your local rival than you would ever care to admit. Until something happens that makes you realize that you ARE the same, and have been all along. Something like Hillsborough.

I live in the USA and am tortured by the five hour time difference that allows the majority of you to watch matches in the comfort of your home after work while I'm sitting at my desk in my office, trying my hardest not to peek so that the outcome will be a surprise when I get home, have put the kids to bed, and am able to catch up. It's hard. Very hard. And I don't always make it. But, I've stumbled upon something valuable. When I can't summon the willpower to wait, I peek in on your tweets periodically during the match and have come to enjoy the play-by-play you provide much more than the monotone droning of whatever announcer is calling the game that day. The passion of the FPL community is on display in no greater way than on game day, as those of you who share a passion for the sport spout your happiness and disappointment; your satisfaction and anger; your euphoria and despair.

Luckily for you, Twitter only allowed me to go back a little ways in the timeline of GW34, but I've put together a play-by-play of the final day of GW34 as seen on Twitter through my timeline. This is YOUR play-by-play; a glimpse into the final day of GW34 as seen through the eyes of the FPL community.

In so many ways, we are all the same. Huge football fans. For a good part of this week, I've spent some time wondering what it would have been like for some of the 96 to have found their way to Twitter and participate in our little community of FPL fanatics had things not happened the way they did. I'm sure they would have been AWESOME to follow, read, laugh, argue and banter with.

I'm extremely thankful for all of you. Here you go....April 16, 2014 through your tweets.... hope you enjoy it.

Special thanks to all of you who granted permission for me to use your tweet for a purpose you were not given much heads up about. I hope you like what I've done with it and how this little experiment turns out. Apologies also to those whose tweets were not used.